Balanced Immune Health

“The ‘truth’ about probiotic claims” is the title of a piece written this week by Chicago Tribune health writer Julie

Our immune health friends

Deardorf. She points out some good tips and cautions that people should be aware of when scouting and purchasing a probiotic food or supplement.

This blog has published several posts on probiotics (and prebiotics), so rather than start with the basics of probiotics and what they do, here’s the link to the lineup of posts that can be viewed separately anytime.

The main concerns in the Tribune story involve:

• Probiotic quality (ensuring the micro-organisms are alive and efficacious at time of consumption);
• Quantity; are there enough micro-organisms in each dose to be effective? We’re talking in the millions;
• The fact that there are many kinds of beneficial bacteria within probiotic products, but not all may work the same or even at all in any given person’s digestive system.

In addition, is the probiotic material encapsulated or tableted in a way that survives stomach enzymes and acid that can break down the organisms before they enter the intestinal tract? That and other factors are discussed in a story in Nutraceuticals World, a leading supplement trade publication, which gives a very nice overview of the probiotic field.

The staff scientists at Embria have told me that the EpiCor immune balancing supplement I take does not deliver live beneficial bacteria, but may act as a stimulant of beneficial bacterial growth, kind of a probiotic “effect” or prebiotic characteristic. But there is no label claim made on this.

One small item in Ms. Deardorf’s piece : She mentioned that supplement labels, while vague because they cannot make health claims, are not required to be preapproved by FDA.  That’s true, but it kind of implied that labels and products are unregulated. I stated that is not the case. I Twittered to her today a note saying the FDA has come down hard on products whose labels overstated a health benefit, had misrepresented ingredients or were shown not to contain stated active ingredient amounts.  Good supplement brands must be and are cautious and diligent when it comes to ingredient quality, amounts and label content.

Filed under Bacteria, Bacterial Environments, Balanced Immune Health, Gut Health, Immune Balance, Immune System, Nutrition, Prebiotics, Probiotics, Research